For Once, Art Bests Politics As the Kennedy Center Honors 5

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Pete Seeger, the folk singer, doesn't wear a tuxedo too often in his line of work. The one he owns was made in 1922 for his father. It had to be let out a few inches so he could accept a Kennedy Center Honors award from President Clinton, who called him "an inconvenient artist who dared to sing things as he saw them."

At a White House reception this afternoon, Mr. Seeger was praised along with the singer Aretha Franklin, the actor Kirk Douglas, the director Harold Prince and the composer Morton Gould. Further tribute was paid tonight by a cast of hundreds -- including Broadway dancers, a gospel choir, an Army band and folk singers in overalls -- in a gala tribute at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The 17th annual Kennedy Center Honors show is to be broadcast on CBS on Dec. 28. Audience members at the Kennedy Center paid as much as $5,000 a ticket to benefit the Kennedy Center.

Mr. Seeger, 75, has spent more time singing outside Washington's halls of power than within them. During the McCarthy era, he was blacklisted after being held in contempt of Congress for refusing to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee. "He was banned from television," Mr. Clinton said. "Now, that's a badge of honor." But Mr. Seeger continued to sing political songs and to organize.

This year, Mr. Seeger, who wrote "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," has received two national awards, a National Medal of Arts and now the Kennedy Center Honors. Apparently he is no longer considered too subversive for the American public. "I'm sure that they've looked at both sides of the question," he said, "and they decided to give the award to me for my music and try to ignore my politics."

Politics was genially kept at arm's length during the Kennedy Center gala, which was attended by Hillary Rodham Clinton and by Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper. President Clinton was on his way to Budapest to attend the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Jane Alexander, the actress who is now chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, joked that she had a "new, noncontroversial job working for the Government." Mr. Seeger's blacklisting was noted during the program, while songs that were once considered vaguely seditious -- "If I Had a Hammer" -- received full-dress treatment from Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez and Roger McGuinn. Mr. McGuinn brought along his Rickenbacker electric guitar to reprise the hit folk-rock version of "Turn, Turn, Turn" that he sang with the Byrds. "I wonder what we're going to do now that you're official," Mr. Guthrie said, addressing Mr. Seeger in the Presidential box.

The Kennedy Center Honors recognize lifetime achievement in the performing arts, but the recipients didn't have to perform. They could merely beam as others showered accolades on them. "The most wonderful thing about this award," Mr. Douglas said beforehand, "is that you don't have to worry about making an acceptance speech. All you have to do is sit there and look pleased and humble. But my wife said to me, 'You can't play that role.' "

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During the reception, Mr. Clinton said that he and his wife had been watching all of Mr. Douglas's movies and were "wondering whether, when the history of this Administration is over, it will be more like 'Spartacus' or 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral."

Mr. Gould, a composer who rejected boundaries separating classical music, pop and jazz, was reminded of his own words by Andre Previn. Criticized some years ago by the classical avant-garde for writing music that was too accessible, Mr. Gould said: "I'm terribly sorry that I wrote something a lot of people like. I'll try never to do it again."

Ms. Franklin was serenaded by the choir of the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, where her father, the Rev. C. L. Franklin, preached. Patti LaBelle belted Ms. Franklin's hit "Ain't No Way," then sang a duet, in a vocal duel, with Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops in "You Send Me." Mr. Clinton praised "the genius God gave her" and added, "You could say that Hillary and I went to law school with Aretha, because there was hardly a day when we didn't listen to one of her songs."

Mr. Clinton called Mr. Prince, who has three shows currently on Broadway, "an asset to our security." "Amid the British invasion of Broadway," he continued, "he has become the great American presence." At the gala, Mr. Prince a major force in musical theater, was reminded that he had once recommended dropping the title song from "Hello, Dolly!" He was recognized with excerpts from his three current Broadway shows: "The Phantom of the Opera," "Kiss of the Spider Woman," and "Show Boat." George Stevens, who produced the televised tribute with Don Mischer, said the casts and costumes had been flown in after today's performances. Chita Rivera and cast members from the Boston company of "Kiss of the Spider Woman" arrived about 40 minutes before they were due onstage.

"Putting on this program in Washington is kind of an unnatural act," Mr. Stevens said. "Everybody is coming in from New York and Hollywood." But for the Washington social elite, it is an annual ritual that combines civic pride with show-business glamour.

Meanwhile, Mr. Guthrie had figured out what to do about folk songs' becoming official. While the audience sang along on the choruses of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," a Seeger favorite, Arlo Guthrie made it topical, lodging an objection to California's Proposition 187, which denies services to illegal immigrants. Mr. Seeger's legacy of sing-along protest had not been stilled.

A version of this article appears in print on December 5, 1994, on Page C00011 of the National edition with the headline: For Once, Art Bests Politics As the Kennedy Center Honors 5. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe